


Home

by Amethystfairy1



Series: Songfic Shots [4]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, Family Reunions, Fluff and Angst, Home, Leaving Home, Returning Home, Reunions, Songfic, it all works out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21747511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethystfairy1/pseuds/Amethystfairy1
Summary: HomeA place where I can goTo take this off my shouldersSomeone take me home***Lyon had gone out into the world to find what he was missing, but as it turned out, he'd left it behind him all of this time. And maybe, after years away, it was time for him finally give into his heartache, confess he was wrong, and at long last make his way home.***Ice maker family, Lyon!centric. Songfic! Home:Machine Gun Kelly, X Ambassadors & Bebe Rexha.
Relationships: Gray Fullbuster & Ultear Milkovich & Lyon Vastia
Series: Songfic Shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936894
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno I was listening to nightcore and this song popped up and I thought it’d be a good time~ It’s a cannon divergence, just for the fun of it, where Ultear came out from the trees when she first escaped the facility. Her age is never actually confirmed so I just decided to make her older than Lyon for shits and giggles. And Gray is still an angsty child but he doesn’t storm off and try to fight a demon when he’s like ten like he did in the original. I don’t really know what this is. It was just a thing in my head I wanted to write. So hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

The air was cold as he walked, slow steps carrying him out from the tavern in town where he’d spent the night, and the owner had been overjoyed to see him. Out onto the central square where memories played like distant fairy lights in his mind. The frozen fountain, honestly, he couldn’t remember a time it had been properly running. It was always too cold this far north.

But to a wizard familiar with ice, the cold certainly didn’t bother him. It was only due to him letting down his own defenses that he was feeling it at all. Being forced to run shirtless around the glaciers as a kid would do that to you.

His coat was bundled a bit closer than usual, and his breath fogged the air with every exhale.

He lifted his gaze to the mountains before him. He’d traveled a long way from this place, and now he’d traveled what felt like an even greater distance to return. All he could hope was that at the very least, they’d be here, and if they were, they’d let him speak his apology.

He left the cobblestones behind and took his first crunching step into the snow.

**_Home_ **

**_A place where I can go_ **

**_To take this off my shoulders_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

Lyon had distant memories of his birthplace, and his parents, before losing it all. He’d traveled the country searching for a powerful wizard to train him in magic. He’d met Ur that way, and she’d taken him in.

He’d been so grateful that she did. It was the first place that, looking back now, he could recall as being home.

**_Home_ **

**_A place where I can go_ **

**_To take this off my shoulders_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

He’d lived peacefully with Ur for a couple years, which was a long time to a child like him before they’d found Gray trapped under the rubble. He was only a year younger than Lyon, and just like him, he’d lost everything.

Gray had been torn apart by the loss of his family to Deliora, and Lyon knew he’d never truly get over it. You couldn’t get over something like that. Still, pulling him from the rubble of his ruined hometown, Lyon had promised himself something.

He was going to help this kid find a home.

And if that home had wound up being with them, then, well, that was perfectly fine with him.

**_Look, I didn't power through the struggle_ **

**_Just to let a little trouble, knock me out of my position_ **

**_And interrupt the vision_ **

**_After everything I witnessed, after all of these decisions_ **

He and Gray fought on the regular.

The boy seemed to be overcome with shadows of his past, and it had really begun to piss Lyon off. He’d never wavered in trying to support his newfound housemate, but in the end, it was starting to seem he’d never get through to him. Ur was working on him too, and while Gray was a little more receptive to her, it wasn’t by much.

At least he remembered that one time he’d one-handed cast and Ur had smacked him upside the head for it. That had gotten a laugh out of Gray.

And him a lump on the head.

And while he didn’t intend to try one-handed casting again for fear of Ur’s wrath, he was glad he’d managed to get a smile on Gray’s face, even just for a moment.

**_All these miles, feet, inches_ **

**_They can't add up to the distance_ **

**_That I have been through, just to get to_ **

**_A place where even if there's no closure, I'm still safe_ **

It was another memory clear as crystal, despite it coming from a young mind, perhaps only twelve years old when it had occurred.

Gray had woken up with a nightmare, and he and Lyon shared a room in Ur’s cozy northern cottage. Lyon had held him while he cried, shaking as memories of Deliora’s rampage threatened to consume him.

“Hey, it’s ok. You’re not there anymore.” He whispered, both hoping not to wake Ur, since he knew Gray wouldn’t want her to see him like this and hoping that it may keep his brother settled.

Brother?

When had he latched onto that term?

He and Gray didn’t share blood, but somehow he felt that had to be the case. After all they’d been through, all the small steps that had grown into running strides as they furiously raged off each other to improve, they had to mean something to each other.

At least, Gray surely meant something to him.

So Lyon rubbed circles against Gray’s back, rocking him gently, and finally, the black-haired boy spoke, his voice constricted by tears.

“W-Why are you always so nice to me?”

Lyon scoffed. “I’m not always nice.”

“Y-You know I mean, stupid.”

Lyon hesitated for a moment, then chose his words. “Because what else are brothers for?”

Gray went still for a long moment, then instead of covering his own face, trying to hide his tears, he moved his arms to wrap around Lyon’s middle.

“Brothers?”

“Yeah,” Lyon assured.

“…I like that.” Gray admitted.

Lyon smiled against Gray’s hair, pressed into the side of his cheek.

“I like it too.”

**_I still ache from trying to keep pace_ **

**_Somebody give me a sign, I'm starting to lose faith_ **

**_Now tell me, how did all my dreams turn to nightmares?_ **

**_How did I lose it when I was right there?_ **

**_Now I'm so far that it feels like it's all gone to pieces_ **

**_Tell me why the world never fights fair_ **

Gray and Lyon were brothers now.

That didn’t really change their dynamic much at all. Gray was still grumpy and unapproachable to pretty much everyone.

Everyone but Lyon, only on the days he was feeling generous. Lyon didn’t mind waiting for those days, and even on the days Gray wasn’t feeling so generous, he could still pry his way in if need be.

It was good enough.

The time after that was a blur of growth, as their powers grew stronger by the day, and Ur only came to be more and more proud of them.

It was about a year after the day he and Gray had decided in the quiet of night to become brothers that Ultear had entered their world.

She’d come tumbling from behind a tree, shaken up and shivering from the cold. Tears falling in large droplets down her face as she cried out for Ur.

For her mother.

The boys had both known their master had a daughter, but they’d also both been informed she’d died before they’d come around. Yet here she was.

It had been a wild adjustment.

Ur had been beside herself with joy at her deceased daughter's apparent return from the dead, and after being informed on the true instances surrounding her ‘death,’ Ur had simply told them to stay inside for the day and gone out.

They’d heard the news that a facility off near the border was found utterly wiped out the next week, and they all had a feeling they knew who did it, but there was no need to delve into that.

So now Lyon had something more.

Not just a little brother, but a big sister, and someone who perhaps he could allow himself to view as a mother.

It was home.

And back then, at thirteen, Lyon had thought it was all he’d ever needed.

**_I'm trying to find_ **

**_Home_ **

**_A place where I can go_ **

**_To take this off my shoulders_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

The man had come to their house frantically, looking like he’d just sprinted the better half of the country.

“D-Deliora!”

At the time, Lyon had been thirteen. Gray was twelve, and Ultear was fourteen. They’d been enjoying a peaceful afternoon before the man had arrived, but the moment he came, it was all thrown into chaos.

“You three say here.” Ur had demanded.

“No way!” Gray shouted, jumping to his feet.

He had healed, sure, but he still hadn’t forgotten what Deliora had stolen from him. Not to mention, he wasn’t about to allow the monster to take anymore.

“Yeah, we’ll go with you!” Lyon insisted, and Ultear stood well.

“No, you won’t. Deliora is _dangerous_ , and you three aren’t nearly strong enough to face it.”

“You’ve been training us, how couldn’t we be strong enough?” Lyon shot back as Ur pulled her jacket on by the door, the three of them all furiously tailing her.

“Mother, please, we won’t let you go alone!” Ultear latched onto Ur’s arm, and Lyon, sensing a solid strategy, grabbed her other arm.

“Let go.” She said sternly.

“No!” It was a collective shout from all of them, as Gray finally exclaimed.

“Don’t make us sit here, wondering if you’ll ever come home!”

**_Home_ **

**_A place where I can go_ **

**_To take this off my shoulders_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

Ur had finally agreed to take them with her, on the condition they stay at the edge of the city and not come any closer, and after ensuring they all swore to her they would only try to help survivors escape, and not try to approach Deliora directly, they were off.

**_It's been a long time coming_ **

“Ur! Ur!” Gray was shouting this over the rubble as they marched over the fallen city, both looking for survivors and for their master.

Their guardian? Their mother?

Who knew.

Lyon climbed an unusually large pile of the destruction and felt his stomach overturn at what he saw.

“No…” He whispered.

“Lyon, can you see her!?” Ultear cried put to him.

Ignoring her, he cast an ice ramp down from the pile and glided all the way down far too quickly, resulting in him being tossed from the ramp and tripping at the bottom, falling flat.

That didn’t matter, though, because as he lifted his head, he saw what had invoked such terror.

**_Someone take me_ **

“What is it?” Gray came rushing around from the debris with Ultear at his side, and both of them came skidding to a halt at the sight before them.

Deliora, frozen in a massive shell of ice.

“She did it!” Ultear threw her arms up in celebration, before noticing the way Lyon’s shoulders were heaving.

How could she do this?

How could she leave him the responsibility to explain that despite this ultimately being her victory, in the end, it left her, not quite dead, but far beyond their reach?

**_Home, home_ **

“What?”

**_Home, home_ **

“No!”

**Someone take me**

After Ur’s, ‘death’ things began to deteriorate. They continued her work as she would have wanted them too.

They helped the cities ravaged by Deliora, and worked to protect the lands surrounding their little cottage from magical beasts or any other sort of threats. They’d been asked about joining guilds, considering three teenagers, the sons, and daughter of one of the most powerful wizards in Brogo should be looking to do something of that sort.

**_Home, home_ **

They’d never even considered it. The cottage was the only place they had left. And despite everything, it had still felt like home.

**_Home, home_ **

Until something within Lyon, after years of fraying, at long last snapped.

**_Look, I been through so much pain_ **

**_And it's hard to maintain, any smile on my face_ **

**_'Cause there's madness on my brain_ **

“Are you _insane_?” Gray had demanded of him.

And maybe back then, he was right.

Lyon had been sixteen. Gray fifteen and Ultear seventeen. They were finally approaching a point where they may actually be considered capable adults.

“Well, I’ve got no intention of wasting time up here any longer.” Lyon had replied, and for a moment he’d considered giving up right then and there.

Apologizing, saying it had just been too much lately, and dropping the bag he had packed upon his shoulder.

“Lyon, please, don’t go. Where are you even planning on going? When are you going to come back?” Ultear begged of him, eyes shining with pent up tears.

She wore her heart on her sleeve far more than Gray every would, that was for sure.

“I’ll go find somewhere to get stronger, not somewhere I’m stuck helping useless people, never growing at all. Don’t you think that’s what Ur would have wanted?” He asked.

At this, Gray exploded, seizing him by the front of the shirt and slamming him into the wall near their front door. “What she would have _wanted_ was for us to stay together! Not for you to go off on some crazy journey trying to get stronger! If you wanna go somewhere, let’s go! But let’s go together!”

“Yeah, we can go, and we can always come back, just…” Ultear tried to back him up.

Lyon gritted his teeth and hauled his fist back, punching Gray hard across the face.

“GET OFF ME!”

They’d tussled before, but this time Lyon had truly struck him with intent to hurt, and that was only further fracturing the factions of his heart.

Of what he wanted to do, of who he wanted to be, of just why he couldn’t bear to live in this quiet pocket of existence anymore.

“I don’t want to go with you, because you’re holding me back! All you want is to obey whatever Ur left us to remember, and that’s all! Don’t you want to know what the rest of the world was like!? She was weak if she couldn’t defeat Deliora, and yet she went knowing she couldn’t and left us to clean up the mess! So I don’t need you to come, I’m not staying to babysit you even a second longer! So just…”

That was all he got out before Ultear pulled the still reeling Gray back and strode past Lyon to the door.

She opened it, pointing out at the snowy landscape dyed by the setting sun.

“Then, get out.” She snapped, harsh, a sharp juxtaposition to the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Lyon stared at her in disbelief before fisting his hands. “Just don’t let yourselves rot.”

With that, he’d gone out into the cold. 

**_So I gotta make it back, but my home ain't on the map_ **

**_Gotta follow what I'm feeling to discover where it's at_ **

**_I need the memory_ **

**_In case this fate is forever, just to be sure these last days are better_ **

**_And if I have any enemies_ **

**_To give me the strength to look the devil in the face and make it home safe_ **

Lyon passed his seventeenth birthday alone. It was only a few months after he’d set out from home, still seething from his departure, but when the date had come, and he realized he wouldn’t wake up to a snowball to the face, or to Ultear making breakfast in the kitchen, or to the traditional ice maker snow fort battle that often resulted in ridiculously huge ice fortresses being constructed around their house before their magic energy finally began to run out, or to talking for hours into the dark of night in front of the warm fireplace, he felt something crack.

He’d put up a wall of ice to separate what he’d thought had been holding him back, but he was wrong.

Gazing down into his palm, where he sat near the campfire, he fisted his hand and let the magic flow through his system.

When he took his hand away, Gray and Ultear stood in his palm, smiling up at him. More effort and he could make Ur too, but her absence had been established before he’d ever left home.

**_Now tell me, how did all my dreams turn to nightmares?_ **

It had been a mistake. To set out from home.

**_How did I lose it when I was right there?_ **

But Lyon was a stubborn bastard.

**_Now I'm so far that it feels like it's all gone to pieces_ **

**_Tell me why the world never fights fair_ **

He made it to Fiore, the land known for having some of the most powerful wizards in the world. He’d talked with many different guilds, showing off the magic of his country and earning great fanfare.

Lyon found himself thrown into several harrowing situations, but in the end, the years started to tick before he could even grasp it. Like water flowing through his fingers.

He was turning twenty.

Gray was nineteen and Ultear twenty-one.

Not that it mattered. He hadn’t been there for them on their birthdays, and the celebrations going on around him at the guild he’d elected to stop into were deafening.

Drinks flowed, but Lyon didn't touch a drop. He remembered Ur lecturing them for hours on how drunkards at bars never amount to much, and alcohol dilutes their magical energy.

Lyon got the feeling she was just trying to scare them away from ever drinking, but if or not her words were valid, she’d succeeded. Lyon didn’t much like the smell of alcohol anyway, so he doubted he’d like the taste.

“So, any big plans to celebrate?” A random woman he’d vaguely associated with in the past asked this of him.

He’d been harped upon to join her guild but hadn’t done so. He’d left so not to be tied down, and joining the guild would do the exact opposite of that.

“Not particularly.” He replied.

She tilted her head. “No? Well, how about visiting family?”

His stomach twisted at the word. “I don’t _have_ any family.”

That was a lie.

Such a lie, he felt horrible for saying it, and before the girl could offer any condolences that he was alone in the world, he spoke again.

“That’s not quite…I do have a family. A younger brother and older sister. But we…haven’t spoke in some time.”

The woman hummed as if she understood, and Lyon had no clue of her backstory, so perhaps she did? He didn’t really care.

“Well…you know, they say the new year is a great time for new beginnings.”

Lyon hesitated. It was true his birthday was in the last month of the waning year, and within the last two weeks, he could easily make the trip back to Brogo.

Back to the cozy cottage on the hill, and to the people he’d abandoned.

If or not they were still there, and if or not they’d even want to see him.

“I’ll…give it some thought.”

**_I'm trying to find_ **

**_Home_ **

**_A place where I can go_ **

**_To take this off my shoulders_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

Lyon had boarded a train back to Brogo the next day, mind still awhirl with just what the hell he was doing.

To go back to them after what he’d said, after how he’d insulted Ur, and insulted Ultear, and hurt Gray when his brother hadn’t been doing anything against him.

It was him lashing out at all that was beyond his control.

Now, perhaps, after three years of traveling, it was time for him to realize that what he was looking for had been his all along.

Until the day when he’d set out to find it, and instead, wound up losing it altogether.

**_Someone take me_ **

The train ride was long. Horribly so. Lyon tried to distract himself from his final destination, but all he could do was imagine what it would have been like if he and his siblings had all take this journey together.

Perhaps they actually would have found something, instead of what Lyon had discovered, which was nothing more than empty validation and the aching pain of what he’d left behind.

The train was arriving at the station, and as he disembarked he saw so much around him that reminded him of what this little town at the foot of the frigid mountains meant to him.

How could he confess?

**_I found no cure for the loneliness_ **

All he’d found was more of it.

**_I found no cure for the sickness_ **

All he’d felt was further distress.

**_Nothing here feels like home_ **

**_Crowded streets, but I'm all alone_ **

Big cities where powerful wizards lived was where Lyon had wanted to go, and yet, upon his arrival, he’d discovered it was entirely baseless.

Yet here and now, walking familiar cobbled streets, past destinations he’d come and gone from a thousand times before, soothed his aching heart.

**I found no cure for the loneliness**

**_I found no cure for the sickness_ **

**_Nothing here feels like home_ **

He’d arrived in the evening, and had elected to stay the night at the local tavern and make the trek back to the cottage in the sun.

**_Crowded streets, but I'm all alone_ **

That brought him to this moment, coming over the summit of the hill and staring out at the cottage, with its chimney trailing smoke, just the same as always.

It was still here, and the smoke made it clear that someone was home.

Lyon swallowed.

His anxiety, his pride, his stubbornness, all of it, he quashed it down and moved forward.

**_Home, home_ **

He’d never knocked on the door to this place, not even once. The day Ur had brought him here, she’d thrown the door open and proclaimed it was his new home. He noted a fresh coat of paint on the front door and a few more dings and scratches on the doorknob.

He raised his fist and knocked.

Standing there with a hammering heart, he waited as he heard the clunk of the deadbolt, and then the door swung inward.

Ultear gazed up at him, her eyes going from casual to awestruck in a split second.

“I…uh…” Any words he had planned over the long journey back had died in his throat.

“Who is…it.” Gray came around from the hallway to the kitchen, eyes widening at the sight of Lyon.

_They’re here._

Where else would they be? Lyon wanted to slap himself for thinking that after how hard they’d clung to this place, they’d actually up and leave after he was gone. He hadn’t impacted them that much.

**_Take me home_ **

“I…hi.” He found this to be an appropriate greeting.

Gray came up from behind Ultear, an unreadable expression on his face.

They both stayed silent.

It was a long awkward quiet before Ultear finally asked him. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Lyon gritted his teeth as the tears burned behind his gaze, but there was no way he could hide it.

They knew him too well.

“No. I left it here all this time.”

Gray rolled his eyes. “And?” He asked shortly.

Lyon dropped his gaze, trying to avoid making eye contact. “…I’m sorry.”

The arms thrown around his chest were unexpected, as Ultear hugged him tightly and pulled him over the door gap inside.

Gray reached around him and slammed the door. 

“It’s cold.” He commented randomly.

_Cold?_

Lyon wanted to laugh at that, but instead, he just found tears coming faster. Before he knew what was happening, he had his arms around Ultear, holding her close as she held him.

He felt Gray’s arms around his shoulders, the younger’s grasp growing tighter by the second as they stood there in the doorway.

Lyon had done some good things in life. And he’d also made mistakes.

But at least he didn’t have to fear of every being truly alone, not when he could count on his family, no matter how forgone he’d become, to welcome him home.

**_Home, home._ **

**_Take me home_ **

**_Someone take me home_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! I was in the mood to do a songfic! and I think I'll probs wind up doing more in the future. We shall see! Anyhow, please leave a comment if you liked it, I'd love to hear what you think! Thanks for reading!


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